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Okay, I'm back. New chapter. Thanks to those who reviewed, I really appreciate it. You make the sun shine for me.

* * *

Buffy looked at her watch. Great, just great. She was already late and she wasn't even half way there yet. Buffy sped up her steps. Unfortunately they came to an abrupt stop as three fighters dropped around her.

Buffy quickly took the sword off one of them and used it to defend herself against their attacks. She managed to deliver a sharp kick to the waist of one of them. He went down hard and hit his head on the tarmac. He wasn't getting up any time soon. She took out number two with a punch to the temple. Leaving her with the third. She knocked him to the floor and dragged his mask off.

"Okay, let's see what you are, or who you are."

The man was clearly a shade of choking to death with the pressure she was putting on the bar that was against his throat, "One soldier in a vast army."

"What army?"

"The Knights of Byzantium. An ancient order and now your enemy."

"You work for Glory?"

The man gave a derisive sniff, "You think we ally ourselves with the beast? You must be mad."

"You're the ones who tried killing me."

"We were fools three alone, but if it takes a hundred men, we send a hundred men, and if it takes a thousand we send a thousand."

Buffy felt her stomach clench, "A thousand?"

"As long as you protect the Key the Brotherhood will never stop until we destroy it and you. So, be done with it. Kill us and let legions follow."

Buffy let him stand, he was human, "Go."

* * *

Buffy walked through the door. An odd sense of calm settled on her. She knew how to deal with them now. They were not going to make her feel like nothing, to them she wasn't nothing, she was everything. She got it now.

Quentin Travers didn't even look up properly, "You're late."

"Yeah."

Giles noticed the sword in her hand "Was there an attack?"

"Yeah."

Travers obviously didn't care, "Well, we can begin the review at last. We'll skip the more obvious question and move on to . . ."

Buffy cut him off by placing the sword on top of his book, "There isn't going to be a review."

He looked as though this was the first time in his life that anyone had ever dared to question him, "I'm sorry?"

"No review, no interrogation, no questions you know I can't answer. No hoops, no jump," One of the watchers moved as though to speak, "No interruptions.

"See, I've had a lot of people talking at me the last few days, everyone just lining up to tell me how unimportant I am. And I finally figured out why. Power, I have it; they don't; this bothers them.

"Glory came to my home today . . ."

Giles stood up, "Buffy are you . . ?"

"Just to talk, she told me I'm a bug, I'm a flea, she could squash me in a second. Only she didn't. She came into my home and we talked, we had what in her warped brain probably passes for a civilised conversation. Why? Because she needs something from me, because I have power over her.

"You guys didn't come all the ay from England to determine whether or not I was good enough to be let back in, you came, to beg me to let you back in, to give your jobs your lives some semblance of meaning . . .

"This is beyond insolence . . ." the sword just missed the Watcher's waist.

"I'm fairly certain I said no interruptions."

Xander and the other were sitting there with their mouths open, enjoying the incredible scene playing out below, "That was excellent."

"You're watcher's without a slayer you're pretty much just watching masterpiece theatre. You can't stop Glory you can't do anything with the information you have except maybe publish it in the, Everyone Thinks We're Insano's Home Journal.

So here's how it's gonna play out, you're gonna tell me everything you know and then you're gonna go away. You'll contact me if and when you have any further information about Glory. The Magic box will remain open, Mister Giles will stay here as my official Watcher re-instated at full salary . . ."

Giles not so subtly coughed, "Retroactive."

Buffy took up her cue, "To be paid retroactively from the month he was fired. I will continue my work with the help of my friends . . ."

Another Watcher raised her hand, while trying to look humble, "I . . .I don't want a sword thrown at me, but civilians, I mean we're talking about children."

Buffy looked up at her friends proudly and smiled, "We're talking about two very powerful witches and a thousand year old ex-demon."

Anya glared at Buffy as though she had gone insane, "Willow's a demon?"

The Watcher's completely ignored her, "The boy? No power there."

Buffy glared at him with eyes that would turn milk sour, "The Boy's clocked more field time than all of you combined. He's part of the unit."

Willow was grinning in brimming pride at her friend, "That's Riley speak."

Xander was smiling goofily, "I've clocked field time."

"Now, you all may be very good at your jobs the only way we're going to find out is to work with me. You can all take your time thinking about that. But I want answer right now from Quentin, cause I think he's understanding me."

Quentin Travers was looking very, very pale, but surprisingly calm, "Your proposal is acceptable."

* * *

"Oh God. A god? A real god? Oh God."

Xander was not coping well with the news. Anya held his hand, "It's okay sweetie, if it gets too bad, we can run away like I did that one time." All eyes in the room swivelled towards her including Xander's, "Apparently I have again said the wrong thing."

Buffy spoke, "We can do this guys. We have to. We don't exactly have a choice."

Buffy was sat in Spike's lap round the table at the Magic Box. It was her birthday tomorrow and they were meant to be discussing that, but instead they had somehow come around to the saving of the world again . . .again.

"Buffy's right, from what the Council ahs been able to ascertain from the boo of Tarnis and their other sources, glory and two of her fellow hell gods ruled over one of the more seriously unpleasant demon dimensions."

Tara flinched, "There's more than one?"

Spike nodded, "A hell of a lot more than one. And they're all different. Some really good, some bad."

Giles nodded, "All pushing on the edges of our reality trying to find a way in."

Buffy leant back onto Spike's chest, "I guess Glory found one. The question is why?"

"God knows pet. Why would something ruling over a dimension want to come here where she's no where near as powerful?"

"Exactly, no bolts of lightning, no blasts of fire. Shouldn't a god be able to do that sort of stuff?"

Giles nodded, "Normally yes . . ."

"But in human form?" Spike looked doubtful.

Giles nodded, "That's exactly it. From what I can gather, being here is severely limiting her power. In fact she's only able to keep her mind in tact by extracting energy from us; from the human brain."

Tara looked shocked, "She's a brain sucker?"

Giles looked forward and read out of the book, "She absorbs the energies that bind the human mind into a cohesive whole."

Buffy nodded, "So . . .crazy people. But what do we do about her?"

Spike thought for a moment, "Giles, would it be possibly to send her back? Wherever she's come from, there must have been a way out, meaning that there must be a way in?"

Giles nodded, "I did think of that. The problem being that we don't know where we would send her. We could send her somewhere where she would get more power, we could end up sending her to a higher plane, or it could back fire and suck us all there. Too much risk."

Buffy laughed slightly, "And when you think about it, the biggest thing on mom's mind is my birthday."

Xander put his hands on the table, "I get that we need to plan. But don't we think that our first priority should be the things that are her first priority? The Key? I mean if she's so desperate for it, it must either have power over her, or control something that she wants. Either way, better for us to have it than her."

Buffy looked quickly from Xander to Spike, then to Giles. Her mind flashed back to a conversation she'd had with Spike a couple of days ago.

* * *

"You can't keep it from them forever. They have to be told."

They were laid together on her bed. He was rubbing her shoulders trying to get rid of a knot that had been there since her fight with the nights of Byzantium. "I know. But what if glory gets hold of them because she knows they know? She would kill them to get the information and it would be my fault."

"Buffy, they want to help. They risk their lives because it's what they do. You can't keep them in the dark. They deserve better than that."

Buffy rolled over and slipped her arms around his neck, "When did you get to be the smart one?"

"I've always been the smart one."

Buffy pouted, "What does that make me then?"

He smiled and kissed her, "The beautiful one."

Buffy kissed him back, "Good answer."

* * *

Buffy flushed as she thought of the rest of the night's activities but dragged her mind back to the conversation at hand, she looked at Giles and nodded, "I have something g to tell you guys."

Willow instantly looked concerned, "What's wrong?"

Buffy took a breath, "I know where the Key is. Giles, Spike and I we all know."

Hurt flashed in the faces of her two best friends, Xander tried not to let it sound in his voice, okay Giles, he might be able to deal with, he was the adult, if they needed help they went to him, but Spike? "Why didn't you tell us, but you told Spike?"

Spike looked at them, "She didn't tell me. I found out by accident."

Xander nodded feeling slightly better, "But why didn't you tell us?"

Buffy flushed, "I didn't want to put you guys in that kinda danger. If Glory knew that you guys knew where it was . . ."

Willow looked hurt, "You still should have said."

"Your right. I was going to tell you tonight anyway." Buffy took a breath, "There's something that you guys need to know about Dawn."

Willow frowned, "I thought you were going to tell us how you found out about the Key?"

Buffy paused; this was difficult, "I guess, I should go further back. Do you guys remember that spell I did? To put myself in a trance so that I could see what was hurting my mom?"

Xander nodded, "Yeah, you said it didn't work."

Buffy shrugged, "In the sense that it didn't tell me what was hurting my mom it didn't. But it did tell me something else. When I was looking at mom, I saw one of our family pictures in the background. One of me, mom, and Dawn. Except that dawn wasn't there she kept fading in and out."

Willow's eyebrows knitted, "What did that mean?"

"I didn't know. I went up to her room and I watched as everything in it kept disappearing and reappearing, including, when she came in, Dawn. Anyway, I thought that she was the thing hurting mom. She wasn't, but Spike saw me throw her against the wall that's how he found out.

"Trying to get to the point. I went back to the factory where I found the Dagon Sphere, and I met Glory for the first time and a monk."

"A monk? You never said anything about a monk." Tara's tone wasn't accusing just curious.

"I know. He told me about Dawn."

Willow looked worried, "Was she possessed?" I light came on in her eyes, "Is she possessed by this Key thingy?"

Buffy smiled, "You are so smart Will. No. Dawn is the Key."

The Scoobies looked confused. And slightly disbelieving, Xander looked at her intensely, "You're saying that Dawn is the Key that Glory is looking for? How?"

"The monks. They were in possession of what was the Key. They couldn't risk Glory getting her hands on it. They needed it to be protected. They wanted to make sure that I protected it with my life. So they sent it to me in the form of Dawn."

Willow still didn't understand, "Are you saying that you're mother was made pregnant by mystical energy?"

Buffy shook her head, "The monks built our memories. She has only been here for six months, but they gave us memories of her whole life."

The gang could do nothing but sit in silence for several minutes.